Laser weapon

In a move that could revolutionize aerial combat, the US Air Force Research Lab (AFRL) has awarded Lockheed Martin a US$26.3 million contract to design, develop, and produce a high-power laser weapon that the AFRL wants to install and test on a tactical fighter jet by 2021.

Lockheed Martin is setting its laser sights on missiles. The US Missile Defense Agency has awarded the company a nine-month, US$9.4 million contract intended to produce a Low Power Laser Demonstrator (LPLD) missile interceptor concept capable of taking out an ICBM shortly after it lifts off.

It was 5-0 at the US Army's White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico as a Lockheed Martin prototype laser weapon system shot down five unmanned drones with a 100 percent success rate. The August test was designed to demonstrate how the laser could decisively destroy unmanned aerial threats.

Laser weapons have been tested on ships, planes, and even armored vehicles, but Raytheon has pushed the envelope further again by successfully testing a high-energy laser mounted on an Apache AH-64 attack helicopter and locking onto and hitting an unmanned target.

​The US Army has mounted a weapon-grade Army laser on a combat vehicle for the first time. Earlier this month, the USASMDC/ARSTRAT fielded a Stryker assault vehicle armed with a 5-kW laser as part of the JIDO UAS Hard-Kill Challenge at White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico.

​In 2015, Lockheed Martin took the wraps off a 30-kW mobile laser weapon that was powerful enough to take out a truck. Now the company will deliver a new 60-kW weapon to the US Army that earlier this month set a new record by generating a single 58-kW beam.

Researchers at BAE Systems believe that a new type of atmosphere-altering directed energy laser and lens system that may make laser defense shields a real possibility in as little as fifty years from now

Following in the US military's footsteps, Britain's Ministry of Defence (MoD) has awarded a £30 million contract to the UK Dragonfire consortium to build a Laser Directed Energy Weapon (LDEW) Capability Demonstrator.

Gamers will no doubt be familiar with the concussion rifle used by the aliens in the Halo games. Well, as has been the case with some other guns from games, cyberpunk weapons tinkerer Patrick Priebe recently made a real-life functioning replica of it.​